DESCRIPTION (Taken from the Investigator's Abstract) A graduate training program in bioinformatics is proposed for North Carolina State University. Support is requested for six predoctoral and two postdocotoral trainees. The training program is centered on a new graduate degree program in bioinformatics, and predoctoral trainees will be required to complete the core courses in bioinformatics, computer science, genetics, genomic science and statistics for that program. There are additional requirements of journal club participation and training in the responsible conduct of research. Predoctoral trainees will earn a Ph.D. with a major or co-major in bioinformatics, biomathematics or statistics. Some students will also co-major in genetics. Predoctoral trainees may take courses to complement their previous training, and will conduct research in collaboration with a mentor from the training faculty. The 13 training faculty are drawn from the department of statistics, forestry, genetics and computer science. There are an additional three adjunct faculty at neighboring institutions. Additional faculty appointments are pending in bioinformatics. The training program is designed to meet the current need for researchers with training in the management and interpretation of genomic data, and is based on the philosophy that this training requires an exposure to the methods of data generation, and to an understanding of the evolutionary processes that shaped current genomic structure. This biological component to training must be accompanied by a thorough grounding in the methods of statistical inference.